Burning the Quran
Are we going to defend liberty, openness, and democracy, or are we going to allow radical theocrats and their ideological allies to try to crush our hard-won freedoms?
Iâve never burned a religious text, and I have no intention of starting now. It is a provocative act, far more likely to arouse fury than to further sincere dialogue between believers and non-believers. But if we wish to live in a society with freedom of speech and religion, as free-thinking individuals we should surely have the right to reject the teachings of any religion or other ideology by destroying its symbolsâeven if that is offensive to believers of that religion.
Salwan Momikaâan atheist Iraqi asylum seeker living in Swedenâwas put on trial in 2023 for âagitation against an ethnic or national groupâ over his public burnings of the Quran, events at which he was physically attacked by some Muslim individuals who were incensed at his actions. But the verdict in his case will never be heard. On 29 January, Momika was shot to death in an apparent act of revenge for his desecrations of the Quran.
The Quran teaches that those who desecrate its words and mock the faith will not go unpunished, whether in this world or the next. According to Surah Al-Ahzab (33:57â61), those who insult Allah will face divine retribution; Surah At-Tawbah (9:61â66) warns of severe consequences for those who ridicule Islam or Mohammed. Historically, these punishments have sometimes been administered by Islamic states and sometimes by zealous individuals who see themselves as executing divine justice.
This is at odds with liberal and secularist notions of free speech and freedom of religion, which are built upon the notion that we should be able to express our religious beliefs and inclinations without fear of violence and without being forced to comply with someone elseâs religious doctrines. These are not just high-minded ideals. They are the basis of prosperity and of human social development.
Countries with strong free speech protections, such as the US, Germany, and the Nordic states, consistently rank among the worldâs most innovative and economically advanced. In their book The Price of Freedom Denied, Brian Grim and Roger Finke present empirical evidence to show that countries with greater religious freedom tend to have more stable economies with higher per capita GDP. In addition, countries like Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands, which score high on free expression and individual rights, consistently top international happiness rankings. Freedom is not just good for Christian Americans or post-religious Europeans; itâs good for everyone, including Muslims. This is at least partly why we see immense migration outflows from less free countries towards freer ones. People flock to places where they can enjoy prosperity and peace.
Before he became an atheist and an opponent of Islam and of Muslim asylum seekers in Europe, Salwan Momika was an Iraqi Christian who served in the militia of the Popular Mobilisation Front (PMF), with whom he fought on the battlefield against ISIS. ISIS, of course, were radical Islamic literalists who believed that they were enforcing the will of God by implementing strict Sharia law and punishing apostates, blasphemers, and all perceived enemies of Islam with ruthless efficiency. Their brutality was infamousâthey conducted executions, beheadings, crucifixions, and mass killings of everyone they captured who fell foul of their rigid, literal interpretation of Sunni Islam. Under ISIS, there was no free speech, no freedom of religion. Their creed was based on the rejection of modernity, and the embrace of bloody medievalism. We should therefore not be surprised to see an individual who fought against ISIS become radicalised against not only ISIS themselves, but also against the book on which ISIS based their ideology.
Brian Stewart
Burning a Quran might be uncouth and intentionally offensive, but damage to a book cannot be compared to violence against a human being. Despite the remark of Heinrich Heine whose experience of Nazi book-burnings led him to conclude that âthose who burn books will in the end burn people,â we should be careful to differentiate those two acts. They should not be treated as equivalents. Burning a piece of writing, however symbolic, is fundamentally different from burning, harming, or persecuting a person. Nobody is physically harmed in the act of tearing down, burning, or desecrating a symbol. It can often be a legitimate form of nonviolent protest, especially when used to protest an ideology like that of ISIS that seeks to strip us all of our freedom of speech and freedom of and from religion. More importantly: What does it say about the state of Europe when a man who fled religious violence in the Middle East is gunned down in Sweden for offending the same ideology that he fled Iraq to escape?
Some have dismissed Momikaâs death as an unfortunate but predictable consequence of his provocations. But if we accept that logic, we must also accept that free speech exists only at the pleasure of those most willing to use force to silence it, that the mere threat of violence is enough to determine what can and cannot be said, and that laws, principles, and rights are secondary to the raw power of intimidation.
The conflict between secularist liberalism and conservative Islamism in Europe is often attributed to mass migration, but it is not as simple as that. In a world in which we are increasingly interconnected, thanks to modern communication and transportation technologies, we are all involved now. It is a question not just for Muslims or for Middle Easterners but for the whole world: Are we going to defend liberty, openness, and democracy, or are we going to allow radical theocrats and their ideological alliesâincluding decolonial anti-Western leftistsâto try to crush our hard-won freedoms?
Since Momikaâs death there have been a spate of copycat incidents, and many people have taken to social media to announce that they plan to burn large numbers of Qurans in his honour. In the UK, an individual named Martin Frost was arrested and has now pleaded guilty to âcausing racially and religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm, and distressâ after broadcasting a livestream in which he burned pages of the Quran in Manchester city centre, beside the Glade of Light memorial for victims of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.
Witness Fahad Iqbal told Manchester Magistrates Court: âI was quite shocked, disgusted, and offended. Iâm a Muslim. I still canât believe someone would do this. When he began to burn the Quran, my heart was about to break out. This is the most emotion I have ever felt.â The presiding judge, Judge Margaret McCormack told the defendant: âThe Quran is a sacred book to Muslims, and treating it as you did is going to cause extreme distress. This is a tolerant country, but we just do not tolerate this behaviour.â So in the UK it is clear that public Quran burners face prosecution, just as they do in Sweden. Not only this, but Greater Manchester Police published Frostâs street address only days after Momikaâs murder, even though doxxing the defendant in a case like this could leave him vulnerable to a violent attack by radical Islamists. (The UKâs Free Speech Union has taken up Frostâs case.) Meanwhile, Salwan Momikaâs co-defendant Salwan Najem, a Swedish citizen, was yesterday fined 4,000 crowns and given a suspended sentence over his part in Momikaâs Quran burnings.
Individuals who burn the Quran are being punished under what are effectively blasphemy laws both by Western legal systems who are prosecuting them for causing offence and by vigilante Islamists who threaten to murder them.
Personally, I donât think it would be helpful to start burning more Qurans. As Luai Ahmed put it in his obituary for Momika: âI donât believe burning the Quran is going to help the Muslim community to progress. Criticising religion and extremist ideologies should come from a place of care and love.â But Momikaâs murder is a very clear sign that the bad ideas that led to the rise of ISIS have gone viral, and until all those who value libertyâincluding my fellow Arabs, as well as all those of a Muslim backgroundâput a stop to this nonsense, things will only get worse, and the extremists will simply continue to murder those with whom they disagree. Notions of free speech and free religion are being thrown under the bus. The cost to our societies will be high indeed.
